Purchase Analysis Report
The Purchase Analysis report puts each item's cost and price next to how it sold at this time last year, so you can decide what to order ahead of a season instead of guessing.
How Purchase Analysis Works
Access requirements. You need "Analytics & Reports" access for the store to open this report — the full permission, not the more limited "Cashier reports" tier, which only covers a separate Department Summary page. If that's the access you have, see the Department Summary article for what that report shows.
It's a tab, not its own page. Purchase analysis is one of the tabs under Inventory in Analytics & reporting.
It covers all of your stores at once. This tab has no "Store" picker, unlike the other Inventory tabs. Every store you have shows up in the table, one row per store beneath each product, so you can compare them side by side.
It's a snapshot of a single day, not a date range. You pick one date, and it opens on yesterday by default.
The last-year columns are the point of the report. Each item shows what it sold in the same month last year and in the month after that — which is what tells you what to buy ahead of a season.
Where to Access Each Feature
To… | Go to |
View the Purchase analysis report | Analytics & reporting → Inventory → "Purchase analysis" tab |
Change the date it reports on | The "Preset" and "Date" controls at the top of the page |
Narrow the list to certain items | The product, department, style, and sub style filters on the report |
Show only items you're out of | The "Out of stock?" toggle on the report |
Set up a recurring emailed copy | Purchase analysis → "Subscribe" |
Manage an existing emailed copy | Analytics & reporting → Report schedules |
Opening the Purchase Analysis Report
Step 1
Go to Analytics & reporting → Inventory.
Step 2
Select the "Purchase analysis" tab.
Step 3
Leave "Preset" on "Yesterday", or choose "Today" to report on today so far.
Step 4
To report on any other day, choose "Pick a date" in "Preset" first, then set the "Date" field. The "Date" field stays greyed out until you choose "Pick a date".
Reading the Columns
Each row is one product at one store. The table shows:
Column | What it tells you |
Name, SKU | Which item the row is for. SKU is the item's unique code |
Store | Which of your stores the row's numbers come from |
Unit size | The size the item is sold in |
Department, Style, Sub style | How the item is categorised, so you can group your buying |
Last cost | The most recent cost recorded for the item |
Price | What the item is priced at |
Last sold price | What it actually rang up at the last time it sold, which can differ from "Price" if the price has changed or a discount applied |
Days since last sale | How long the item has sat without selling |
This month last year units sold | Units sold in this same calendar month a year ago |
Next month last year units sold | Units sold in the following calendar month a year ago |
Month to date units sold | Units sold so far this month |
Last week units sold | Units sold in the past week |
Units on hand | How many you currently have |
Out of stock | Whether the item is currently out of stock |
Narrowing the List
Step 5
Use the product, department, style, and sub style filters to cut the table down to the items you're buying for.
Step 6
Turn on the "Out of stock?" toggle to limit the table to items you currently have none of.
Step 7
Expand a product row to see it broken out by store.
Planning a Seasonal Order
Step 8
Filter to the department or style you're buying for.
Step 9
Scan "Next month last year units sold" to see what moved in the month you're buying ahead of.
Step 10
Check "This month last year units sold" alongside it to see whether the season has already started.
Step 11
Compare those against "Month to date units sold" and "Last week units sold" to confirm the item is still selling at a similar rate this year.
Step 12
Check "Units on hand" to see how much you already have, and "Last cost" against "Price" to sanity-check what the order will cost you.
Step 13
Use "Days since last sale" to catch items that have stopped moving, so you don't reorder something that's stalled.
Setting Up a Recurring Emailed Copy
Step 14
On the Purchase analysis tab, click "Subscribe" to open the "Subscribe to report" window.
Step 15
If you have more than one store, note the message "This report covers all of your stores." There's no store picker here, because this report always covers every store.
Step 16
Choose a "Cadence" — daily, weekly, or monthly — and then the matching "Day of week" or "Day of month."
Step 17
Choose a "Reporting period" — the single day each email will cover. The options are "Yesterday," "1 week ago," "Previous month," "2 months ago," "3 months ago," "4 months ago," "6 months ago," and "1 year ago."
Step 18
Enter "Recipients," separating multiple emails with commas.
Step 19
Set a "Title," then pick a "Format" — csv, json, jsonl, xlsx, or pdf. Choosing pdf clears the others, since it can't be combined with them.
Step 20
Edit the "Message" if you want to, then click "Subscribe" to save it.
What It Looks Like in Back Office
The report opens on yesterday with every store included, and the "Store" picker that appears on the other Inventory tabs is absent here.
On a multi-store account, the "Subscribe to report" window replaces the usual store picker with the line "This report covers all of your stores."
Scheduled emails for this report are labelled "All stores" where other reports name a single store, because the attached export covers your whole account.
If you subscribe with the same recipients, formats, and cadence as a schedule you already have, the report isn't scheduled and you'll see a message beginning "Could not create report subscription for" that goes on to say "A schedule with these recipients, report, export formats, and cadence already exists."
Troubleshooting
You don't see a "Purchase analysis" tab under Inventory: the tab hasn't reached your account yet. Contact support to check.
The "Date" field is greyed out and won't let you type: choose "Pick a date" in the "Preset" dropdown first — the field stays locked while "Preset" is on "Today" or "Yesterday."
You can't find a "Store" picker on this tab: there isn't one. This report always covers every store, and each store appears as its own row under a product.
You can't set a start and end date: this report is a single-day snapshot, so there's only one "Date" control. To compare periods, use the last-year and month-to-date columns already in the table.
There's no "Subscribe" button on the tab: not every analytics tab supports scheduled emails. If it's missing on Purchase analysis specifically, contact support.
Your scheduled email says "All stores" instead of a store name: that's expected for this report — the attached export covers your whole account, not one location.
Subscribing fails saying a schedule "already exists": you already have a matching schedule. Change the recipients, format, or cadence, or edit the existing one under Analytics & reporting → Report schedules.
Selecting pdf clears the format you'd already ticked: pdf can't be combined with the other formats. Pick either pdf on its own, or one of csv, json, jsonl, and xlsx.
You have "Cashier reports" access instead of full "Analytics & Reports": that's a different, more limited permission tied to a separate Department Summary page — it doesn't grant access to Inventory or this report.